24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
The Standing Committee (*) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), which brings together around 60 of the Assembly’s members, meets in Vilnius on Friday 24 May 2024. The meeting was preceded by a working breakfast of the Women@PACE group, with the participation of...
24/05/2024 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Vilnius today, considers that the crises Europe has experienced – such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine – have highlighted the weakness of a narrow understanding of inclusive education, pointing out that children with complex needs have been...
24/05/2024 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Vilnius today, called on member states to include cultural heritage preservation in their strategies designed to address climate change and its impact. The parliamentarians expressed their concern at the fact that “all forms of cultural heritage – tangible...
24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
“In the early 90s, the people of Lithuania called this building the heart of Lithuania. It was here that thousands of Lithuanians gathered to protect our young democracy on the bloody night of 13 January 1991, forming a living human shield against those who sought to reverse our course to...
24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
“In the Parliamentary Assembly, we look forward to working closely together with the authorities, and in particular with the Seimas, towards achieving the priorities of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Committee of Ministers,” PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos said today at the opening of the...
24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
“The Council of Europe is celebrating its 75th anniversary. We can be proud of its principled performance when faced with an unprecedented ethical choice. It is one of the very few organisations that expelled the aggressor state right after the start of Russia’s full-scale war of aggression...
24/05/2024 | Women@PACE
“With seven women and eight men as Ministers, your government has become the most gender-balanced cabinet in eastern Europe, with women holding key ministries, notably those of Justice, Finance, Economy, and the Interior,” said PACE Secretary General Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis, welcoming...
24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
Despite international pledges to work towards ending child labour in all its forms, the latest figures show a “worsening global situation”, according to PACE’s Standing Committee – with some 79 million children worldwide, between 5 and 17, working in hazardous conditions. Approving a report by...
24/05/2024 | Standing Committee
A PACE Parliamentary and Electoral Cooperation Division hearing, organised in the margins of the Standing Committee in Vilnius, in collaboration with the Lithuanian Delegation to PACE, focused on sanctions against the Russian Federation and companies aiding in their evasion. The hearing gathered...
23/05/2024 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
A special tribunal, created by agreement between the Council of Europe and Ukraine and supported by an enlarged partial agreement open to non-member States and other international organisations, is now “the best feasible option, in terms of legal basis and political legitimacy” for trying Russia...
22/05/2024 | Monitoring
The Monitoring Committee, which met in Paris on 17 May, welcomed the electoral reforms implemented by Armenia in line with the recommendations of the Venice Commission, and stated that the objective to hold genuinely democratic elections had largely been achieved. In adopting the report by Kimmo...
22/05/2024 | Monitoring
Following the publication of the Venice Commission’s urgent opinion on the law on transparency of foreign influence, the PACE co-rapporteurs for Georgia, Claude Kern (France, ALDE) and Edite Estrela (Portugal, SOC), have urged the Georgian authorities to repeal this law. “Our Georgian...